1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to display devices, display methods, supply devices, supply methods, storage media, and control systems. In particular, the present invention relates to a display device, a display method, a supply device, a supply method, a storage medium, and a control system that are preferably used for a case in which multiple electronic devices for supplying content data are connected to a display-screen-equipped electronic device, such as a television receiver, through interfaces that communicate commands together with the content data.
2. Description of the Related Art
An HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) standard is available as an interface standard for interconnecting digital home electronic equipment, such as a digital television receiver, a digital video camera, a digital video recorder, a digital player, a digital tuner, and a home-use game machine (e.g., refer to International Patent Publication No. WO2002/078336). Electronic equipment having a terminal that is compliant with the HDMI standard will hereinafter be referred to as an “HDMI device”.
A terminal and an HDMI cable that are compliant with the HDMI standard have a CEC (consumer electronics control) line for communicating control signals, such as a command and a message, between HDMI devices connected through the HDMI cable, in addition to a line for transmitting AV data (e.g., refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-208290).
A technology that uses the CEC line to communicate a control signal is available to allow an inter-device control function (hereinafter referred to as a “CEC function”) to be realized between HDMI devices connected through an HDMI cable.
In a system in which a source device 1 (e.g., a digital video recorder during playback) that serves as an HDMI device for supplying content data (such as AV data) and a sink device 4 (e.g., a television receiver) that serves as an HDMI device for outputting content data supplied from the source device 1 (i.e., for displaying video and outputting audio) are connected through an HDMI cable 3, as shown in FIG. 1, the CEC function is a function in which the source device 1 controls the operation of the sink device 4 and the sink device 4 controls the operation of the source device 1.
More specifically, for example, in the case of FIG. 1, through the use of “DeviceMenuControl” and “RemoteControlPassThrough” in the HDMI standard, the user can control the source device 1 by performing input operation using a sink-device remote controller 5 with respect to a menu 11 for the source device 1 (i.e., with respect to a representation corresponding to a video signal supplied from the source device 1), the menu 11 being displayed on a screen of the sink device 4. That is, an operation signal transmitted from the sink-device remote controller 5 is received by the sink device 4 and a command is transmitted from the sink device 4 to the source device 1 through the HDMI cable 3.
Needless to say, the user can control the source device 1 also by using a source-device remote controller 2. Similarly, the user can control the sink device 4 by using the sink-device remote controller 5.